By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.
Monday, July 28, 2008
I wonder if they wish they’d just stayed home.
According to Gorman’s article, about 6 percent of Minneapolis’ students are Somali-speaking, but “more than 17 percent of the children in the district’s early childhood special education autism program are Somali speaking.” (It’s estimated that 15,000 to 40,000 Somalis live in Minnesota, the largest Somali population outside of East Africa.)
She later goes on to quote Dr. Chris Bentley, the director of a nonprofit in Minnesota that assists children with autism and their families as saying, “We’re definitely seeing it, and something is triggering it.”
In the meantime, the Minnesota Department of Health is struggling to put together a study to determine if there is an unusual pattern of autism among the Somali children. Anne Harrington, an early childhood special education coordinator for the Minneapolis district is also sounding the alarm. “We have a number of families who have two children on the spectrum and sometimes more.”
Harrington adds that she knows of one apartment building “with Somali residents in which every family has at least one autistic child.”
She also noted that immigrant children are given more vaccines than regular American children and they’re often doubled up to make up for lost time. They may also receive some vaccinations in Somalia, but then are re-vaccinated when they enter this country.
Curiously, the Somalis don’t seem to have this problem in their native country. According to David Kirby, the Somalis refer to this as the “American disease.” Somali immigrants to Sweden are also noticing an increased autism rate, which has some experts in that country suggesting it may be a result of the Somalis dark skin and the differing amount of sunlight in Sweden, affecting the amount of vitamin D they receive from the sun.
It’s ironic that the CDC notes that those most likely to delay or refuse vaccinations are the well-educated because of concerns abut a link to neurological problems. Immigrant Somalis are asking similar questions about the vaccines they’re receiving. It’s like that old saying that if everybody says your haircut looks bad, you should probably wear a hat.
Experts in the United States have been able to portray our concerned citizens as ignorant
of their family histories, or as one relative put it to me, “it used to be in the old days that if a doctor saw something wrong with a kid, well, they’d just . . .” and drew a finger across her throat. (Okay, she’s a kooky cousin, but I’ve heard that sentiment expressed more than once.) However, like many urban legends, I don’t believe my forefathers and foremothers were more likely to murder disabled children than our currently enlightened citizenry.
But if there is a kernel of truth that Americans have in the past been more likely to conceal medical conditions, I really don’t see how that applies to Somali society. East Africa is the area in which the human race began and the tribal societies there have preserved the wisdom of generations past.
Knowledge in these societies is passed on through oral tradition, rather than the written word. Pulitzer-prize winning author Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel) is well-known for his observation that while tribal people may not have written language, their knowledge of the local environment is extensive. It's the reason so many pharmaceutical companies consult local elders about the possible medicinal properties of plants in their area.
But apparently the Somalis have never seen anything like autism in their own land. It's something they seem to have picked up on their journey to the west.
It’s something which should get everybody talking.
Kent Heckenlively is Legal Editor of Age of Autism.